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​It was not inevitable that the majority of the closed schools be Title I. It wasn't inevitable that black students in the district be disproportionately affected by closures 3 times that of white students, or that Hispanic students be are disproportionately affected 2 times that of white students. And yet, here we are.When asked about why certain schools were left off the closure list in a recent Chronicle article AISD staff “noted that Barton Hills and Zilker "do not have a partner school in the proximate area we could send kids to. We looked for pairs of schools that not only had a low percentage of utilization but had room to accommodate more students as well." https://tinyurl.com/y3ef4x4t

Here’s what we found:Zilker is 2 miles from Dawson, while Barton Hills is 2.1 miles from Joslin. Both Dawson and Joslin are slated for closure. Those are shorter distances than 4 pairs of current closed-consolidated schools: Webb-Dobie (2.9 miles apart), Pease-Zavala (2.5 miles apart), Brooke-Linder (3.9 miles apart), and Perez-Palm (2.5 miles apart). The district could also close Barton Hills and send those kids to Zilker (which is less than a mile away) while rezoning some of the Zilker neighborhood to Joslin or Dawson.Below is a graph that shows the distances between all schools in the current proposal that will be consolidating students (in red). Then I show Zilker, Barton Hills, Bryker Woods and Lee (that are not on the closure list) and the distances from them to the nearest proposed closed campus (in green). I also included the distance between Zilker and Barton Hills, because the district could consolidate, and rezone the eastern part of Zilker's boundary to Dawson.

There are viable options that include closing schools with high concentrations of whiteness, but the district didn’t include these in the plan for closure. That was a choice. I don’t know the intent behind those decisions - if they purposely avoided those schools or if the formula they followed just happened to exclude them. But in the end, what matters is the impact, not the intent.

However they got here, this plan inequitably burdens students of color - and it didn’t have to. https://tinyurl.com/yxfu9mpx They could have made different closure choices that did not put a disproportionate burden on our black and brown students. Why didn’t they? Why isn’t Lee on that list? What isn’t Barton Hills? The district has not given compelling answers.

​It is not the natural order of things for black and brown communities to get the short end of the stick - that happens because of the choices we make, the systems that we chose to function in. When we make public policy decisions without taking into all of the histories that got us here (1928 master plan, real estate redlining, school segregation, disinvestment in low-income schools, etc. etc. etc.) we just build upon an inherently unjust system. We didn’t start the system, but we are responsible for how the system continues to operate. The plan the district is putting out now is the biggest change for our schools we will have in a generation. It is important that we do it right, and not make decisions that perpetuate inequities.

To see the interactive version of this graph, visit the tableau: ​https://tinyurl.com/yxfu9mpx

Why aren’t Lee, Zilker and Barton Hills Elementary Schools being considered for closure? It would seem that concentrations of wealth, whiteness and privilege make all the difference.

If the current AISD Change Plan goes ahead, Economically Disadvantaged students will be 3 times more likely to experience school closure than students who are not EcoDis. Members of the board and the administration have asserted that this is the only way to get these students into 21st Century Buildings. That assertion is disingenuous at best. There are schools that are high SES that could be considered for closure, instead of the nearby Title 1 schools currently on the list. They are adjacent to schools that are currently being closed, have low FCA and ESA scores, and have low school capacity (below 500 students).

Lee Elementary is less than a mile and a half from three schools that are being closed or consolidated. The FCA and ESA scores of Lee are 46 and 53 respectively, which are below Maplewood’s scores of 46 and 66, and below Campbell’s of 67 and 89. Lee is currently sitting at just above 100% utilization, but this is due to transfers into the school. If you just look at students who go to Lee and live within the boundaries of Lee they would be at 68% utilization. Lee is in the same vertical team as Campbell and Maplewood. Lee is also a ‘small school’ with less than 500 students. Why isn’t Lee on the list for closure? It would seem that the reason is that the district prioritizes white, wealthy students and does not want to ask them to carry their fair share of sacrifice in this plan.

The current plan is to close both Joslin and Dawson Elementary schools in south Austin. Both of these schools are Title 1, with the majority of students identified as EcoDis. Why are these schools on the list, while nearby Zilker and Barton Hills Elementary schools are left open? Both Barton Hills and Zilker are majority high SES. It is true that they are both above 100% utilization, but they have high numbers of transfer students. If you only look at the students who live within the boundaries of Barton Hills and Zilker and attend those schools, they would be at 67% and 87% utilization, respectively. They are also both considered small schools, with less than 500 students each. They are located less than a mile from each other.

Barton Hills’ building is extremely small. Without portable buildings their capacity is only 251. The school community advocated and succeeded in getting the portable capacity included in their full capacity numbers in order to reduce the risk of them closing, during the last discussion of school consolidations. Again, wealthy, white parents used their power to get the rules changed for them and the district acquiesced.

The Zilker FCA and ESA scores are 41 and 63, which are lower than the scores of Dawson, their direct neighbor, which is slated to close. Why was Zilker prioritized over Dawson? Again, it seems that the concentration of wealth, whiteness and power is the deciding factor.It is true that all three of these schools are at or above 100% utilization. It is not by chance that majority white, high SES schools are always at capacity. Society judges the quality of schools by test scores, which is highly correlated to socioeconomic status. Concentrated wealth and privilege are at a premium and parents who have the means are able to navigate the system to get into these 'highly desirable', under-enrolled schools. If we do not take into account the social and historical context for why certain schools are overenrolled, while others are half empty and neglected, we will continue to build systems that privilege those that have privilege, while over-burdening those who we have historically marginalized. If the board refuses to close schools that are at or above capacity, they are, by design, refusing to consider schools that are majority white and high SES.

The board and our community must do more to live out our stated values of equity. If we are going to go through with closing schools, more schools with concentrated wealth and privilege must be on the list of closures.

If the school district answered some of the following clarifying questions, it would help move us towards options that would provide more equity than the current proposal.

What criteria was set for closing schools? Was the criteria applied to all schools in the district in the same way?

How did the lens of equity affect the list of closures?

How was the amount of money that they will be able to save from closing a particular school determined?

How much would be saved from closing at each school across the district, if they apply the same criteria?

What percent of students who get a transfer are Economically Disadvantaged in the district as a whole and at each campus?

What is the break down of transfers by race and ethnicity for the whole district and by school?

What is the % utilization of each school in the district, if transfers-in were not included?

​During AISD's 'School Changes 2019', more students will move from one campus to another through school closures, consolidations, and boundary design than at any time since 1979's court-ordered desegregation. With such movement, there should be room in the conversation for ideas that truly reinvent the urban school experience. Austin ISD has a unique opportunity to have an honest conversation about socioeconomic and racial balance in our schools.

In the landmark 1954 case Brown vs. The Board of Education, US Supreme Court concluded that ”in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” While legal segregation of schools is a relic of our past, functional separation is the current result of Austin ISD's enrollment design. If we believe segregated schools are ‘inherently unequal’, then the proposals below offer the potential of a just and equitable future for the Austin Independent School District:

To that end, Austin Independent School District (“Austin ISD” or “AISD”) supports students with several nationally-celebrated schools, a world-class performing arts center, and pioneering programs in social-emotional learning and dual-language immersion. Austin ISD operates 129 schools proudly serving 80,100 students for the 2018-2019 school year. Our district celebrates academic achievement as our students frequently perform above state and national averages on various measures. AISD students come from all walks of life, as represented below on the 2018-2019 demographic snapshot from the district’s “About Us” page.

​Students come to AISD schools speaking over 90 languages at home, 27.1% are English Language Learners, 12.1% receive Special Education services, and 52.4% are classified as “Economically Disadvantaged”. An economically disadvantaged student, as defined by the Texas Education Agency, qualifies for “free or reduced-price meals under the National School Lunch and Child Nutrition Program.”

In this series, we’re going to focus on the near 50/50 split of students who are economically disadvantaged/advantaged in Austin ISD. It represents a socioeconomic balance of families participating in AISD schools that is unseen in an urban Texas school district. We in Austin are, once again, in a celebrated position. We are privileged to have a district-wide conversation about socioeconomic and racial integration in Austin ISD.

Enrollment in Texas urban districts skews heavily toward students of economic disadvantage. Reviewing the top 10 urban school districts in the State of Texas (map below) reveals that Austin ISD is the least economically disadvantaged among our urban districts by at least 15 percentage points, and the only urban district near a 50/50 socioeconomic balance.

​While other urban districts in Texas have significantly higher levels of economic disadvantage among their students, AISD’s relative balance broadens the conversation of what is possible. While districts like San Antonio ISD and Dallas ISD are “piloting” programs at certain schools to integrate their schools by socioeconomics and race, Austin ISD may have the underlying student demographics to imagine a district-wide integration program that shine hopes on AISD’s vision to “Reinvent the Urban School Experience”.

Austin ISD has a clear and unique opportunity to enjoy the benefits of REAL socioeconomic and racial school integration in an urban school district. In Part 3 of this series, we’ll explore how our take a deeper look at how the district’s socioeconomic balance manifests within our individual schools. The Case for REAL School Integration in Austin ISD is a seven-part series on “Reinventing the Urban School Experience” in Austin ISD through equitable, well-integrated schools.

Part 1: What is REAL School Integration?Part 2: What kind of integration opportunity does Austin ISD have?Part 3: How many Austin ISD schools are balanced by socioeconomics and race?Part 4: Why should REAL school integration be a guiding principle in Austin ISD’s recent Reinvention plan?Part 5: How are other school systems in the US addressing school integration?Part 6: By what methods could Austin ISD better integrate our schools?Part 7: With the opportunity, what would REAL School Integration look like in Austin ISD, and is it worth the challenges to achieve it?

This is the first entry in a seven-part series on “Reinventing the Urban School Experience” in Austin ISD through equitable, well-integrated schools.There is a conversation emerging in public school systems across the United States. While our schools are clearly re-segregating by class and race, a new generation of students, parents, and school leaders are having an honest dialogue on a modern form of school integration. It’s a dialogue of centering on justice and equity and honoring cultures. It is a dialogue that incorporates social and behavioral science where previous desegregation efforts fell short. Most importantly, perhaps, it’s a dialogue led by our nation’s students. This is the lens through which we’ll examine the potential for REAL School integration in Austin ISD (AISD).Since the Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, Americans have wrestled mightily with this Supreme Court ruling, and AISD can claim no better. In fact, Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus at Stanford, summarized Austin’s attempt to comply with Brown as a 30-year integration enacted with “all deliberate slowness” in contrast to Brown II’s demand of “all deliberate speed.” AISD leadership and proposed plan after plan to seeking a path of least effort to integrate while still passing Federal muster. This involved teacher exchanges, closures of black schools and unidirectional bussing, multi-directional bussing, magnet schools, and open enrollment and cross-cultural academic programming.This is probably a good time a to stop and wonder...why are we talking about integrated schools? What values does it promote? How does it feed the educational experience? A think tank called The Century Foundation has been at the forefront of modern school integration research, combed volumes of academic journals, and concludes from the literature the following benefits of socioeconomically and racially diversified schools:Academic and Cognitive Benefits:

Attending an integrated school can be a more effective academic intervention than receiving extra funding in a higher-poverty school.

School integration promotes more equitable access to resources.

Diverse classrooms prepare students to succeed in a global economy.

These benefits address many of the challenges faced both by our schools and by broader society.. Would it not be worth exploring if we had the opportunity?One of the most diverse yet segregated school systems in the country, the New York City Department of Education is also the nation’s largest school system educating 1.1 million students. Students in New York schools began to take notice of their segregating school policies. Those desiring to lead the change formed a student-led organization called IntegrateNYC. Among their accomplishments was to broaden the definition of schools to include the 5 “R’s” of REAL School Integration summarized below:

R1:“Race and Enrollment” makes the demand that every student attends a diverse and inclusive school. As in most school systems, this would require an altered enrollment design to many if not all schools to accomplish.

R2: “Resources” adds an equitable sharing of programmatic and financial resources to ensure all students share in a similar educational experiences.

R3: “Relationships Across Group Identities” makes a significant leap to include multiple aspects of modern sociology, linking the quality of the educational experience to multi-directional relationships grounded in empathy and power-sharing across group identities.

R4: “Restorative Justice” makes another significant leap to include restorative justice principles to reduce the disproportionalities in school discipline.

R5: “Representation of School Faculty” adds the nuance that a diverse faculty is best-equipped to offer a culturally responsive and inclusive educational experience.

In Austin, we might add a sixth “R” to include a “Respect for Culture and Language”. As a Sun Belt city with a school district comprised of 55% Hispanic students and 27% English Language-Learners speaking over 90 languages from a myriad of cultures, mutual respect is a particularly important ingredient to civic harmony in Austin, Texas.

The students of IntegrateNYC have done a remarkable job defining the “R’s” of a REAL Integration. They captured the nuance that 80% of the value of integration stems from sociological changes to our education system, like sharing of power, promoting justice, and ensuring inclusion, and not simply moving numbers of students around to integrate school buildings. Their work was incorporated into system-wide policy recommendations and influenced Mayor Bill deBlasio’s recent report to better integrate all New York City schools.

Can Austin follow suit? In Part 2 of this series, we’ll begin to explore the potential for REAL integration within Austin ISD.

The Case for REAL School Integration in Austin ISD is a seven-part series on “Reinventing the Urban School Experience” in Austin ISD through equitable, well-integrated schools.

Part 1: What is REAL School Integration?Part 2: What kind of integration opportunity does Austin ISD have?Part 3: How many Austin ISD schools are balanced by socioeconomics and race?Part 4: Why should REAL school integration be a guiding principle in Austin ISD’s recent Reinvention plan?Part 5: How are other school systems in the US addressing school integration?Part 6: By what methods could Austin ISD better integrate our schools?Part 7: With the opportunity, what would REAL School Integration look like in Austin ISD, and is it worth the challenges to achieve it?

I am calling on us all to look at this data as a reflection of ourselves and the collective values of the city that we live in. Before we start pointing fingers, let's sit quietly with the truths that have been exposed here. Let's be curious. Curious about how this came about. Curious about the history of our city. And curious about the role that we have played in this history. Then let's start to be curious with each other. Let's ask questions, and LISTEN to each other. Let's explore: How do you feel about how we have segregated ourselves? What are your hopes and fears surrounding this issue? How do you think we should move forward? What ideas can we explore?

What I dearly hope, is that this project starts a conversation. I want us Austinites to look at this data as a reflection of ourselves, because it is a reflection of us and our city. Do we like that we are this segregated? Does it feel like we are living our best selves and our best values when we see how separated we are? If we don’t like what we see, what are we going to do about it? If you want to get in on this conversation, let me know. I want to hear what you have to say!